Dillon Square deal

[5shot]

I'm contemplating one of these and wondering if any of you folks have one and how you like it.These pistol caliber carbines are consuming so much ammo they're overwhelming me and my Redding T7.

[BrokenolMarine]

I load on the Twenty year old 550 series press, and have for years. I upgraded from an LEE as I was shooting PPC and it got to the point where I was shooting about 10,000 rounds a year between 38, 9mm, and 45ACP. The 550 allowed me to change toolheads and caliber plates and off I went. The Square deal is likely a good press, If you decide to go with it you'll likely be happy with it but make find you want to move up later.

For a bit more money you can get the 550C, which will allow you to load a lot faster, and at a higher volume, but you are still in CONTROL as it's a manually indexed turret press. You might call Dillon customer service or view the videos on the website and see, but I'm pretty sure this setup comes complete for the caliber at $590.

It's a bit more up front, but if you buy the Square deal you'd probably find yourself upgrading the square deal later, adding this thing and that one, and end up with a less performing press in the end than if you went with the 550 series.

I stuck with the 550 series even though the step up to one of the larger presses would have added stages to the press turret to let the PRESS do more, and increased the speed. I was fine where I was. I still load on the 550 and am happy with it all these years later.

much neater with shelf.jpg (477.65 KiB) Viewed 2731 times

Dillon has great customer service, but ... they are a bit more expensive on many of the items they sell. However, the quality is never lacking and they stand behind everything. A year or so ago, my electronic powder scale died. I called to ask about getting it checked out, "It could just be the power supply... I told the guy. I know it's WAY out of warranty, but I thought maybe y'all could check it, and I'd buy another."

"I'll tell you what I can do," the young fella said, "I'll send you a brand new press at cost, and you put the old dead one in the box and send it back." (Cost was more than reasonable.) I gave him my card number, he shipped her out priority at their cost. I sent the old one in and never heard a peep. That digital powder scale was at LEAST fifteen years old and the new one was MUCH nicer.

[BigAl52]

I have 2 Square deal presses. I had 3 at one point and gave one to my step daughter as she was into shooting quite a bit before she had now become somewhat disabled. I bought my first one at least 30 years ago and its been back to Dillion one time for a rebuild which they use to do for free and dont do that anymore. Ive loaded a bunch of rounds on square deal presses. Never had a issue that I couldnt adjust myself or fix. They say you can load so many rounds an hour and you can but myself I tend to go a little slower and I dont have any issue cranking out 300 an hour. Need to go a little slower on 9mm otherwise if you get to jerky you can sling powder out of those short little cases. I keep one set up for 9mm now and one for 357.

[BrokenolMarine]

There you go, from someone who owns not just one, but three.

[BigAl52]

5shot.
Im wondering where your thoughts are with 9mm though. Unless you are well stock with supplies you have accumulated in past years isnt it about a wash to buy that ammo on sale or at one of these reman outfits? And then again maybe you just like rollin ur own. I get that. But with primers at .08 a piece and bullets at .10 a piece add the powder at about .04 a piece you can buy that 9mm for about 22 already loaded. Just thinkin out loud here. Also I might add that while I really like the Square deal you can only use the Square deal die conversion kits. With a 550 you can use dies you probably already have. Only difference really is the Square deal indexes and the 550 is man powered. Might be some food for thought

[The Happy Kaboomer]

I have 4 Sqw. D's. Bought first one in 1988. 2Nd one in 1990. IN 2011 My Bro-in-law gave me 2 when he quit reloading........I have 9 caliber changes.
Contrare to what someone said above.......There's really nothing to upgrade on a SQ-D.........You buy it and comes set and pre-adjusted for the caliber of your choice. Bolt it down......set powder measure and start loading.
in 1988 I wanted a progressive pistol loader and the only 2 Dillon offered was the SQ-D and the RL1000. So I went with the SQ-D.....been satisfied ever since.
Somewhere above someone said they upgraded from Dillon to Lee.....That made me bust out laughing.....Dillon was the first company to offer a NO-BS warranty and FREE parts..............Forcing other companies to fall in line and do the same over time.

[BigAl52]

Might want to reread Marines comment about the upgrade. He upgraded from a Lee to a Dillon 550.

[BrokenolMarine]

Before I made my reply to the OPs original post, I looked at the Dillon Site, and they had the following upgrades listed as options for the Square Deal B press:

22312 - Square Deal B Bullet Tray Kit + $69.00

62395 - Strong Mount With Cartridge Bin Mount | Square Deal B + $130.00

19441 - Square Deal B | Toolholder w/ Wrench Set + $43.00

16306 - Low Powder Sensor + $55.00

I have The Bullet Tray Kit and Strong Mount and Cartridge Bin mount on my press in the picture above for the 550B. I didn't have a need for the tool holder as I mounted peg board beside the press and had made stands for the Allen wrenches and drivers.

I also pointed out that the Square Deal upgraded could work fine, but the OP might decide they wanted to upgrade to a faster press. I have been happy with my press all these years, but I have never been one to worry about speed, I actually enjoy the quiet time at the press. I would load one or two hundred rounds, then stop. Do something else. Load more the next evening after the family went to bed, or if I was on midnight shifts, load a couple hundred rounds while everyone was at school / doing chores at the barn and I had the house to myself.

[5shot]

Thank you for the replies from people that have them.

BigAl52....... I handload everything. None of my pistol caliber carbines whether SS, lever or autoloader have ever seen a factory load. I can't remember the last box of factory ammo I've bought. The majority of the projectiles are my own cast bullets and it's not really a money thing. Like the Marine said, it's the quiet time in my lair that I enjoy. The primers I'm currently using are from the days of less than $30 a brick and I can't resist picking up nice once fired brass at the range.

[BigAl52]

Thank you for the replies from people that have them.

BigAl52....... I handload everything. None of my pistol caliber carbines whether SS, lever or autoloader have ever seen a factory load. I can't remember the last box of factory ammo I've bought. The majority of the projectiles are my own cast bullets and it's not really a money thing. Like the Marine said, it's the quiet time in my lair that I enjoy. The primers I'm currently using are from the days of less than $30 a brick and I can't resist picking up nice once fired brass at the range.

I know that guy. He's the same guy who is in Texas every year. Another guy and myself give him a bad time because he has a bunch of Crown Royal Bags and picks up brass at the range when we go shooting. Last year he says I just can’t help myself Ive got way more brass than I need and I don’t know why I keep picking it up. I get the casting and loading your own. I got burned out casting when I did it so long for long range black powder shooting. It got to be a job and the fun part went away.

[BrokenolMarine]

When we moved from VA to Oklahoma, I gave my mentor a lot of things from the range and range house on my farm to distribute as he saw fit. I was no longer competing, nor planning to continue teaching, so the extra target frames, barricades and in ground flush mounts for PPC, stacks of B27 targets and centers, but the big thing was the five gallon buckets of collected brass from years of teaching. Mostly 38 and 40 caliber, but a bucket or two of 223, 12 gauge, and 9mm. I, of course, kept what I thought I'd need for the calibers I'd reload...

I couldn't see hauling the weight all that way, and even with two 26' uhauls, space was at a premium.

[rickhem]

I have two Square Deal B presses. One is set up to load large pistol primers, and that one has been set up to load .45acp for Bullseye 98% of it's life. I've also got the toolhead and dies to load .44 special and .44 mag on that one. My other press is set to load .357 mag right now, but that one has been .38 special about 90% of it's life, also for Bullseye pistol ammo. It's also loaded .40S&W for a spell.
My single biggest upgrade/modification was to remove the little plastic catch box that spent primers drop into underneath both presses, and replace that with an enclosed drop tube with a small Nalgene bottle on the end to catch the spent primers. It bothered me that the spent primers would bounce out of the little box and get all over the floor in my loading room.
I have owned both presses since the late 1980s, and they've been trouble free, with a couple small adjustments made as time went by. There is a wire that directs a loaded round out of the shell holder plate and into the Acro bin as a loaded round that occasionally needs reshaping, mostly when changing cartridges being loaded. Having a few extra Acro bins, and extra primer pick-up tubes is a nice thing for volume loading. I got to where I could load 100 cartridges in less than 20 minutes without really pushing it. Most of that is ergonomic placement of your brass and bullets, and developing a series of motions that are easily reproducible and allow you to make a quick visual of the rounds on the shell plate before each cycle of the press.
One big drawback is that you can't load rifle ammo on these presses, and you don't use standard 7/8"-14 thread dies, but use the proprietary Dillon dies. For the handgun ammo, I consider that a non-issue. It would be nice to be able to load .223, and I'm sure someone has come up with a way to do that on the SDB, but mine are just the calibers I listed.

[The Happy Kaboomer]

Might want to reread Marines comment about the upgrade. He upgraded from a Lee to a Dillon 550.

Oops!!!!...........read it backwards......Sorry.

[5shot]

Al.....the quote of "I just can't help myself, I've got way more brass than I need I don't know why I keep picking it up" fits like a glove!

Thanks again for the input gentlemen. I ordered it this morning!

[5shot]

I watched a couple videos 0n the Square Deal and carefully followed the instructions today only to find out the shell plate doesn't advance. After I calmed down a little (I seem to be on a roll with quality control issues lately) I called customer service. He had me remove the shell plate and we spent a half hour or so and he said he would send a new shell plate screw.

So this evening after a 16 oz. can of Coors Banquet calming fluid I went back in the toy room and took a fresh look. The pawl is not engaging the shell plate. If the index assembly that holds the pawl is pushed forward from the back of the unit it will click into place and...Bingo... you get one whole successful cycle. The next pull of the lever is once again the agony of defeat.

On the schematic I see there is a wave washer on the back side of the index assembly, a return spring on the front and a coil spring on top. Tomorrow I'm going to pull the shell plate again and see if something obvious is going on. It could be that the screw that holds the assembly together is loose but it's cleverly concealed behind the frame and will probably require completely disemboweling the stinking contraption to gain access to.

We'll see what tomorrow brings. This malfunction is not an assembly issue on my part. I see they have a 30 day "Risk Free" trial in the catalog and I saved the box!

[rickhem]

Sorry to hear of your trouble @5shot. I have to say that mine has been relatively trouble free, but I'm guessing that there was possibly a short learning curve when I first set it up. Your use of the term "pawl" shows you are using a revolver action as your basis of comparison, and yes, that's exactly how it works. I can remember mine being a bit sticky at first, and it would kind of snap the shell plate into the next position, but that abrupt movement often spilled some powder as it snapped that 90 degrees of rotation. I'm guessing years and years of use has smoothed that out. I also remember how my station two, case mouth flaring and powder drop die, that gave me a .38 special case that flared like a trumpet. I almost couldn't believe it didn't split the case, that's how wide it flared the case mouth. I backed that die out to just slightly flare the mouth and not overwork the cases. With that minimal adjustment, the HBWC bullets slide in easily, and I've got probably over 30 loadings on my brass since then. I do occasionally get split cases, but often don't find them until after they're loaded. I mark those with a sharpie and just chuck those cases after that last firing. The 2.7 grains of Bullseye doesn't really stress them very much.

Good that you're working with Dillon to get it worked out. They've been exceptionally helpful whenever I've called, and friends say the same. I'd suggest that once you get the press cycling properly, just spend a while working the lever and cycling it over and over to let all those parts kind of lap themselves into the shape they need to be.

[BigAl52]

I watched a couple videos 0n the Square Deal and carefully followed the instructions today only to find out the shell plate doesn't advance. After I calmed down a little (I seem to be on a roll with quality control issues lately) I called customer service. He had me remove the shell plate and we spent a half hour or so and he said he would send a new shell plate screw.

So this evening after a 16 oz. can of Coors Banquet calming fluid I went back in the toy room and took a fresh look. The pawl is not engaging the shell plate. If the index assembly that holds the pawl is pushed forward from the back of the unit it will click into place and...Bingo... you get one whole successful cycle. The next pull of the lever is once again the agony of defeat.

On the schematic I see there is a wave washer on the back side of the index assembly, a return spring on the front and a coil spring on top. Tomorrow I'm going to pull the shell plate again and see if something obvious is going on. It could be that the screw that holds the assembly together is loose but it's cleverly concealed behind the frame and will probably require completely disemboweling the stinking contraption to gain access to.

We'll see what tomorrow brings. This malfunction is not an assembly issue on my part. I see they have a 30 day "Risk Free" trial in the catalog and I saved the box!

You’re luck sounds like mine 5shot. Buy something today that cost 3 times as much as it use to and it doesn’t work. Tear down of the press isn’t to bad. I bet something didn’t get put together right. Keep us posted

[BrokenolMarine]

Dillon has a 100% no BS warranty. They will get it right. I went with the 550 because I wanted the control.

[5shot]

Spent some more time on the phone this morning. I had the machine just about down to its birthday suit and gave the "Index Lever Assembly" screw (#14014) one full turn and problem is solved. There was time and aggravation involved but one plus is that I have a little more of an understanding of the innards of the Square Deal.

rickhem...I got the powder measure consistently throwing 3.7 gr. of 231 but will have to back off the flare a quite a bit. There's a whole new learning curve involved here for an old buzzard with a half century of loading on single stage, Wilson dies and turret presses.

[BigAl52]

Im guessing since you mentioned it in an earlier post you are loading 9mm?? With mine I tend to go a little slower because with those short cases you can flip powder out. Also I found an led light that clamps on the the end of my bench and I shine it into the third station. Helps me make sure there is no double charge in the case. Im using 4.3 of 231 with a 124 gr bullet